The niche and paratextual industries of games and play

Connect 4 – Fear my Vertical play!

My own picture of Connect 4 (No line of 4 can be seen. Don’t want to give away the ending)

Oh, how I spent many hours upon hours playing Connect 4. Not the analogue copy you see in the picture above but a digital one in the MMORPG RuneScape, at the Burthorpe Games Room which was members only access. So, I was paying a $14 (landline phone) monthly subscription at the time to play RuneScape, all so I could play Connect 4 (they called it Runelink) with some buddies around the world. There was a ranked mode within the Games Room so you could attain a higher and higher rank by defeating your foes and be a huge competitor for everyone to see. Your name would travel far and wide within RuneScape and you would have a target on your back!